


the courage that comes with fear

by green_piggy



Series: tales and chronicles of whump [2]
Category: Tales of Series, Tales of the Abyss
Genre: Angst, Character Study, During Canon, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Phobias, Spoilers, Tight Spaces, Whumptober 2020, tales of games be like [looks at comedy relief character] we're gonna give them so much trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:54:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27199462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/green_piggy/pseuds/green_piggy
Summary: While exploring the Zao Ruins to rescue Ion, a self-inflicted rockslide separates the group from each other. Anise finds herself alone… or so she first thinks.
Relationships: Guy Cecil & Anise Tatlin
Series: tales and chronicles of whump [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1956778
Comments: 7
Kudos: 17
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	the courage that comes with fear

**Author's Note:**

> written for the prompt "phobias" for day 18 of whumptober! i had waaaaaaay more ideas for this month, but honestly, i've been the whumpee for a lot of it lmao. shit's hard! please take care of yourselves!
> 
> guy's one of my fave characters from anything ever so naturally i had to make him a victim. sorry son. maybe one day i'll be nice to you. go see somebody about that absolute fuckton of unresolved trauma you're carrying around okay
> 
> also this is an anise tatlin love zone and if you don't like her i am booting you out. she's an incredible character people are just mean
> 
> hope you enjoy the fic~

It wasn’t as though the Zao Ruins had  _ great  _ lighting to begin with, so it shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but Anise still found herself startling with a squeak when the fonic lamps around them flickered and buzzed before snuffing out entirely. Someone took a sharp intake of air.

As the ruins fell into darkness, so, too, did their group fall into silence. The scuffing of boots against rock and tile came to an abrupt halt. The quiet hung in the air like an executioner's blade.

“Oh. Well,” came the Colonel’s far too cheery voice. “This seems to be quite the dilemma.”

“No, it’s not!” Luke snapped. “Hey, Thing! Go breathe your fire!”

“M-mieeu…”

The familiar stomp of Tear’s foot against the ground.

“Don’t be so ridiculous!” she chided. Anise could perfectly imagine her hands on her hips, leaning forward slightly in disapproval. “You can’t expect Mieu to continuously breathe fire! Not to mention that it would provide only a tiny source of light!”

“Grr…”

“We must have something,” Natalia mused. “What about your Invoke Flame arte? Or could Jade not use an arte?”

The slight shuffle of moving fabric came from Jade’s direction — he was probably shrugging. “Not without bringing down the ruins on top of us.”

“Hmph! I shouldn’t have expected either of you to be of much assistance.”

“I don’t see _you_ being any help,” Anise sniped back. Just what was with it Kimlascan royalty being complete and utter brats? Lorelei, it would be a nightmare if she did actually have to marry Luke.

“Why, you-!”

“Just do it, Thing!” There was the unmistakable soft  _ squeak  _ of poor Mieu being grabbed. “Give us some fire!”

_ “Mieu…” _

There was a wisp of flame, soon followed by a weak but continuous stream of light. It was just enough to see the smirk spreading across Luke’s face.

“See? No problem!”

Anise saw it right before Jade’s eyes widened — the sparking of Fifth Fonons in the air as they clumped together, lured together by the fire.

“Get down!” Jade yelled.

A sharp _ bang! _

Anise yelped and ducked, ears ringing as she covered her head with her hands. She squeezed her eyes shut and heard voices — Luke yelling, Tear frantically attempting to sing, screaming—

Then nothing.

* * *

Before Anise opened her eyes, before consciousness even fully returned to her, she could hear ringing echoing in her head — and, if she strained to listen past that, very slight whimpering. Her brain felt as though it had been all mushed up. She was face-down on the ground, and could smell ash and dust drifting through the air. With a groan, she sprayed her hands out against the ground and pushed herself upwards. Her fingers brushed against the handle of her rod. She gripped it tight.

Darkness greeted her. There was a weak flickering beam of light shining through a crack above that didn’t reach where she was. The fonic lights must have been working again, even if only somewhat.

Her training kicked in before her instincts; she patted herself over quickly. No blood or unusual bruises, although her finger caught in a slight tear in Tokunaga’s hand. She’d need to patch that up when they got outside again. He’d be usable for two, maybe three, more fights before the literal stuffing came out of him. The side of her head felt a bit delicate when she touched it, and she was definitely a bit light-headed, but considering the distance she must have fallen, it was a miracle that she wasn’t injured worse. The ringing in her ears was fading. The weak whimpering wasn’t.

Fuck, the  _ others— _

Anise curved her hands around her mouth. “Helloooooooo!?”

The whimpering stopped.

“Who’s there?” Anise called. She couldn’t  _ see  _ anyone else; all around her laid fallen boulders. A large stack had gathered only a few feet to her right, and she had to resist the urge to shudder. If she’d just fallen a bit more in that direction, she would have been completely and utterly crushed.

There had to have been a path leading up somewhere nearby, but she couldn’t discern the voice’s direction. “Where are you!?”

It would be  _ just  _ her luck to run into one of the stinking God Generals, wouldn’t it? Lorelei, if Gloomietta showed her stupid face right now, Anise would gleefully clobber it in with her rod.

But it wasn’t Gloomietta’s voice that eventually responded to her. It wasn’t even a woman’s voice at all.

“...Anise?”

It sounded strained, but it was a voice Anise recognised.

“Guy!?”

“The one and only!”

For a second, she was almost fooled by the chipperness in his voice, but then his voice broke on the last word; he tried to cover it up with a chuckle, but Anise missed very little.

“Where are you?” She whirled around on her toes. “I can’t see you!”

“I dunno how much help I’m gonna be,” he said, voice tight. Like the way Ion’s got when he was very carefully trying to keep his emotions under wraps because he had to be a good little perfect Fon Master and  _ oh  _ how angry that made her — but this wasn’t the time. “I can’t really see anything.”

“Can’t you move?”

A beat of silence that lasted for just a fraction too long.

“...Nope.”

Anise’s stomach dropped right through the bottom of her body. That pile of rocks to her right, surely,  _ surely  _ that wasn’t—

“Holy shit —  _ Guy—” _

“I’m okay!” came Guy’s weak-sounding voice, muffled by the boulders. “I’m okay! None of them are on me! I just… I can’t move them.”

There was a noise of knuckles rasping rock from within the huddle of boulders. It stacked far taller than Anise stood, at least thrice her height, a hill of stone topped by a gigantic slab. There couldn’t have been any light reaching Guy.

If she listened closely, she thought she could hear him breathing just a bit faster, a bit louder, than usual. Like he was attempting to control himself and not doing such a great job with it.

Honestly, if it was  _ her  _ in there, she’d be freaking out too.

She couldn’t just — barge in there with Tokunaga’s fists swinging. If she lodged one boulder a bit too out of place, the chunk at the top would just collapse right on him. She didn’t think Tokunaga was tall enough to pluck the top off, though. If she messed up, she wouldn’t be able to use him at all, and then they would both be, to put it kindly,  _ fucked. _

“Anise?” drifted Guy’s voice, as panicked as she had ever heard it. For a moment, she was brought back to Choral Castle, to her back screaming in pain from how hard he’d shoved her off him. He sounded very similar now to how he’d been back then, and he’d been having a  _ panic attack  _ just because a girl had touched him.

How the hell did Luke’s manor treat their servants? Were all of the maids petrified of men? Marrying into his family was looking less and less appealing by the second.

Agh, this  _ so  _ was not the time! She slapped her cheeks together.

“I’m still here!” she called. “I’m not going anywhere without you, don’t worry. Just trying to work out  _ how  _ to get you out.”

“T-thanks…” Just as Anise thought that he wasn’t going to continue: “I, uh. I don’t like the dark. Or tight spaces.”

“I don’t think  _ anyone  _ likes the dark,” Anise muttered. She always had to keep a light or candle on when she slept with Tokunaga in her arms

Guy’s answering laugh was wet. “I — I mean… I  _ really  _ don’t like the dark.”

Towards the end of that sentence, his voice took on the same pitch it tended to take whenever a woman accidentally brushed arms with him in the street or came too close for his comfort. That alone was enough to make a prickle of genuine concern in Anise’s heart. Sure, she and Guy weren’t  _ close,  _ but at this point, they were definitely friends.

Come to think of it, he hadn’t said a word when all of them had been plunged into darkness before. Surely he would have called out for Luke at the very least. It was strange, but if he really was that terrified of it...

“Another phobia?” Anise asked quietly.

There was a few seconds of silence before Guy let out a self-deprecating laugh. “Yeah. Something like that.”

And now he was stuck with a woman having to rescue him. Maybe they should title today as “Guy Cecil’s Extraordinarily Bad, Absolutely Awful, Definitely Not Having A Good Time” day.

Anise swallowed down her nerves and clenched her fists. It was up to her and her alone to get this problem sorted.

“I’m gonna keep talking, all right?” She swung her arms behind her and began to do a slow march around the stack of rocks, peering for any kind of holes she could wedge even a finger into. Rocks weren’t perfect shapes that flawlessly slotted into one another. There had to be  _ something. _

In such extreme darkness, though, it was near-impossible to see much of anything. She ended up running her hands over the surface, the thin fabric of her gloves catching and tearing on every little uneven bump. She’d have to stitch those  _ and  _ Tokunaga both after this.

“Are you okay apart from the whole ‘trapped in an extremely tight space with no light’ thing?” She pressed her ear close against what she thought was a gap to see if she could feel any wind.

_ “Jeez,  _ Anise, thanks for reminding me,” came Guy’s vitriol voice.

“Sorry!” Maybe it’d be better if she kept her mouth shut after all.

Nope. Not even a whistle of a breeze. Sighing, she pushed herself upwards again and began to hum to herself as she continued her circle around.

“What’s that you’re humming?”

“Huh?”

“That song.”

“Oh, it’s nothing special.” She felt herself smile despite everything. “It’s a hymn traditionally sung in the Order to celebrate the Fon Master’s birthday. You should have seen Ion’s face when we did it for him! He got  _ soooo  _ embarrassed. It was kinda cute.” A beat. “Tell him I said that and I’ll rip off your arms.”

It was a few seconds before he replied, his voice distant and subdued: “His birthday, huh…”

“Huh?”

It was only many months later, with a great amount of hindsight, that Anise would look back on this moment and think:  _ ah, so this is what set him off. _

In the current moment, though, there was — for an exact second — utter silence,  _ then— _

Anise jumped at the sudden  _ bang  _ of a fist against the rocks next to her.

“Anise,” came Guy’s whimper of a voice. “Get me out. Please.”

“I’m _ trying—” _

“Now,” he hissed. “I  _ need  _ — I-I need out.  _ Now.” _

_ Bang. Bang.  _ Anise’s heart lurched.

“Stop it!” she found herself snapping. “I’m trying to—”

“I can’t breathe,  _ Anise—” _

“Yes you can—”

Another furious thud. Anise swore she saw a rock dislodge.  _ “I can’t breathe!” _

“Stop pushing!” Anise yelled. “You’ll be crushed! Guy—”

“Get me OUT!”

The slab on top wiggled. One tiny rock popped out and clattered against the ground. Anise watched it roll. She glanced back up to see Guy’s shaking, ripped glove jut out.

That small rock, barely larger than Anise’s palm, was all it took. Another rock tumbled, and then three at once, and then there was a dreadful rush, a sound like a flowing river, only too rough to be soothing, as all of them collapsed at once.

It was only Anise’s instincts that saved Guy's life. She threw Tokunaga forward and herself backward, covering her ears and clenching her eyes shut with her hands over her head. She crouched and prayed, prayed to a figure she’d never really believed in, begged Yulia with every fibre of her to let them survive, please, please  _ please— _

The eerie silence that fell was worse than the gnashing and banging of boulders. Anise’s training as a soldier ordered her to stand and analyse the scene. The part of her that was still a child kept her curled up in a trembling ball, nausea in her throat, tears stinging her eyes.

Eventually, she stood. Her steel boots echoed against the ground. She couldn’t see it, but she could taste the tangy dust the falling rocks had thrown up, could feel the particles settling on her skin and getting in her eyes. She scrubbed at them with ice-cold hands.

She wanted to throw up.

There was no movement. Nothing.

Surely he wasn’t — Guy  _ couldn’t  _ be—

A scream. Anise got socked in the face by a familiar lump of orange and white teeth —  _ Tokunaga,  _ she realised, heart lightening — and fell over right on her behind. She sat up, willing to give a piece of her mind, but stopped her fist mid-air at the sight in front of her; Guy, hunched over, hands on his head, his entire body shivering more violently than a tuning fork at maximum resonance.

Her first emotion was overwhelming relief at him being alive. The second one was one she would never admit to.

Pity.

Were he anyone else, Anise would have hurried over and attempted to calm him down. She would have laid a hand on his shoulder and told him to  _ breathe,  _ to follow her breathing, and stayed there for as long as it took.

But he wasn’t anyone else. He was Guy. Anise going anywhere near him would only make things even worse.

She couldn’t do anything.

So she didn’t.

Anise very carefully kept her gaze on Tokunaga. She minimised him and cuddled him in her arms, looking over him. her heart twisting at every haggard breath, at every desperate pant, at every rasping hack, that she could hear.

The tear in Tokunaga’s left hand had gotten larger. A trail of stuffing was leaking out of it, little balls of it dotted over the ground. She ran her finger over the stitching in his side and squeezed her eyes shut. The guilt in her chest threatened to suffocate her.

Eventually, after what felt like eternity, there was the scuff of footsteps. Anise dared a glance up and saw Guy wobbling to his feet, hand reaching for a sword scabbard that was no longer there. He took a deep, heavy breath, the kind that went through your entire body, dragging his hands over his face and through his hair before finally turning to face Anise.

“...Hey,” he said, voice croaky.

Anise did her best to smile. “Hey.”

Silence again.

“...Sorry.”

“You don’t—”

“I’m  _ sorry,”  _ Guy said, sounding more steady than he had all day. “For... “ He gestured at the rubble surrounding them. “...This.”

“S’okay.” Anise clutched Tokunaga against her chest. “Do you…”

Oh, hell, what was she about to say? They were friends, yeah, but that was a shaky word at best. Anise had never really  _ had  _ friends before. Was she just clinging so desperately to this strange little group of people because she’d never had anyone else at all before? They weren’t exactly  _ close.  _ Anise knew nothing about them, and they knew nothing about her. If they knew about her, about what she was doing behind their backs, they’d abandon her faster than 

“...Do you want to talk about it?”

Guy blinked, eyes blown wide. Anise couldn’t determine if it was from surprise or from him still recovering. “About what? There’s nothing to talk about.”

_ Oh, I don’t know,  _ she barely succeeded in not saying.  _ Why the hell you’re scared of so much? _

“Did Tokunaga touch your back?”

“Yeah, but…” Guy went to rub his neck. His fingers slipped and brushed only empty air. “He cushioned the rocks, so… can’t really complain.”

Back touching seemed to be a big no-no, regardless of the gender — or lack of — of whatever was doing said touching. Anise was starting to think that this was less of a  _ “how Luke’s manor treats their servants”  _ thing, and more of  _ “Guy is a  _ lot  _ more than he appears to be”  _ thing. She knew that the Colonel was more than a little bit interested in him, and she was definitely seeing why.

“Thanks, Anise,” Guy said, snapping her out of her thoughts. His smile was shaky but kind. “For saving my life. I’m sorry for freaking out there.”

“You’re welcome,” she mumbled.

Guy tipped his head. “You okay?”

Was he being  _ serious?  _ “I wasn’t the one trapped in a bunch of rocks!” she hissed. “I was just… I wasn’t expecting you to flip that much, I guess.”

“Ah…” Guy looped a hand through his belt and gazed away. "Well. I don’t like the dark or tight spaces. It’s not a big deal if it’s — just the one.” Guy wiggled his other hand side-to-side in the air in front of him. Anise didn't miss the minute trembling in his fingers. “I don’t  _ like  _ ‘em, but I can handle one fine.”

"So both of 'em together..?"

He ducked his head down and scrunched his shoulders together. A sharp exhale of air, almost sounding like a laugh, escaped him. "...Yeah. I, uh, go to pieces. Sorry. I dunno why I'm like this." The noise that left him as he clenched his hands together in his lap definitely was a laugh this time, but it was not a kind-sounding one. It was identical to the one that made Anise gently cuff Ion behind the neck on the rare occasions he made it. "Pathetic, isn't it? That I'm scared of so damn much."

If he was anyone else, Anise would have flopped across them and told them to stop being so silly. But she couldn't do that, not without freaking Guy out ever further. As fun as it was to tease him, what had happened today went way beyond that and further teasing would be just plain  _ cruel.  _ Anise had seen ghosts with more colour in them than Guy's skin had right now. "I don't think it's pathetic," she mumbled. She swung her arms back and forth, careful to keep her distance. "I think it's pretty brave."

_ "Brave..?" _

"To have that many phobias of common stuff and to keep on traveling with the rest of us no problem..?" She hummed. "I think that's pretty strong."

A harsh huff. "I… wouldn't call it that, but thanks, Anise."

"Still," Anise said, "imagine if you were trapped under a whole bunch of women's bodies! That'd be, like,  _ all  _ of your fears rolled up into one."

Guy pulled his face. "Yeah, I, uh,  _ really  _ don’t wanna imagine that."

She shrugged. “Just sayin’!”

There was a silence just a bit too long to be a regular pause in conversation. Guy had his lips pulled tight, looking as if he wanted to say something. He let out a sigh so heavy that it shook his body before he turned to Anise with a wry smile.

“Don’t tell Luke about this,” he said. “Or any of the others, but… especially not Luke. Please.”

“Why not?” Anise held her hands behind her back. “He’s your best friend, right?”

Guy shook his head. “That’s exactly why he can’t know. I… pretty much raised him. He needs me to be strong for him.”

_ But what about what  _ you  _ need,  _ Anise wanted to say.

“Being afraid of women is bad enough,” Guy continued quietly. “I really don’t want him finding out about the other stuff.”

Luke was an asshole in a lot of ways. A  _ lot.  _ He was rude and abrasive and self-centred and selfish and arrogant and a thousand other far more unpleasant words Anise could think of.

But he’d never been cruel when it came to people’s fears. Hell,  _ he  _ was petrified of killing people, which was… honestly, completely normal. Anise had had that beaten out of her from countless hours of training, but even she still hid behind Tokunaga whenever his fists slew through flesh and bone. She’d even devised an arte to automatically clean him after each fight. She’d thrown up the first time she had to scrub dried blood out of his fur. Blood that  _ she  _ had spilled. She couldn’t wield a knife like Tear did, or a sword like Guy did, or even a lance like the Colonel did. The thought of stabbing through skin, of blood spilling onto her as she pulled a blade out of a body… she was still only a child. She just  _ couldn’t. _

Luke had never teased anyone about what they were afraid of. Hell, he didn’t tease Guy about his phobia of women. Even  _ Tear  _ did, but Luke always snapped at them to cut it out or to stop being annoying. He never minded when Guy ducked behind him or suddenly thrust him in-between him and a woman.

Anise couldn’t see him getting annoyed about phobias that were way more common. Tons of people were scared of the dark. Plenty of people loathed being in tight spaces. As horrible as Luke was, he didn’t seem to be a genuinely  _ bad  _ person. Just a royal brat with a silver spoon stuck up his arse.

“I really don’t think he’d mind, but…” Anise smiled back. “Sure. My lips are sealed!”

She was too drained to work up her usual charm and energy, and she was grateful that Guy just smiled back and didn’t push her on it. “Thanks.”

For a long moment, there was nothing at all. No sound. No movement. Anise found herself looking over at Guy again. He just looked… so  _ tired.  _ There was a slight slouch in his stand, a heaviness in his downcast eyes that didn’t look right being there.

She  _ really  _ wanted to give him a hug. Hugs made everything better. Hugs made the world seem kinder when it was scary and angry and so so  _ wrong. _

But she couldn’t. Not without making it worse. She couldn’t even offer him a hand or a shoulder to lean on.

_ She  _ couldn’t, but…

“Hey.”

Guy yelped and slid back a few steps in lightning speed when Anise held out her arms, hands stretched over his face. Anise, holding back a sigh, kept her position and waited. Eventually, he lowered his arms, the terror on his face soon clouding into confusion.

“Huh? Tokunaga..?"

“He’s great for cuddles!”

Guy stared at her blankly. She suddenly felt foolish, but planted her feet in the ground and pressed on.

"Look, just — I won't tell anyone. Not a soul!" She tossed Tokunaga over to Guy and watched him fumble before catching him. "But I can enlarge him and, if you  _ want  _ to… go right ahead. I won't even look!"

And to prove her point, Anise resonated with Tokunaga’s fonon frequency to enlarge him right before she twirled on her foot, resting her hands on her hips. If she just followed that beam of light that she'd spotted before…

She was curious, deathly so, to look behind her, but she didn't. In the quiet of the ruins, though, it was easy to catch up on every little noise.

When she heard that faint but distinctive  _ squish  _ of arms wrapping tight around a soft toy, she couldn't help but smile.

"I think I see a way up over there!"

“You do?”

Footsteps approached her and stopped a few metres away. Anise turned around, Guy smiled back at her, Tokunaga, now back to his usual size, tucked underneath his arm.

“Yeah. There has to be a path to that ray of light up there, right? Let’s find it!”

A small chuckle. “You lead the way, oh great Fon Master Guardian.”

“That’s ‘Ionian Sergeant Anise Tatlin Oracle Knights Fon Master Guard’ to you, but let’s go!”

“Still  _ way  _ too long.”

Anise was ready to sleep for a week straight when they found Ion and got out, and she was aching in places she didn’t even know  _ could  _ ache, but she was alive, and so was Guy, and that was more than enough for her.

**Author's Note:**

> [ [twitter](https://twitter.com/greenpiggles) ]
> 
> enjoyed the fic? loved the pain? please consider dropping a kudos and/or comment, and have a wonderful day~


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